There are a few different causes of leptin resistance. Let’s go over a few of them and you can see for yourself if any of these criteria line up with your lifestyle. If this sounds like problems you are facing in your daily life, you might want to consider addressing your leptin resistance.
The first cause of leptin resistance comes from diet. A diet that includes sugars, simple starches like white bread, pastries, or any white flour products, artificial sweeteners, and processed foods can lead to leptin resistance.
These foods contain little to no nutritional value and are very easy for the body to process. When they hit your stomach, your liver turns them into sugar immediately for your muscles to use. Unless you go out for some intense physical exercise, these foods are stored as fat, and the leptin levels in your blood stay high.
The next cause is the frequency of your eating. Do you wait until you are very hungry to eat a meal, or do you snack every time you get peckish? If you’re constantly snacking throughout the day, you don’t give your body a chance to recover and repair itself. You also don’t give your leptin levels a chance to go back down. If you constantly have high leptin, you might become resistant.
The last two causes are not related to diet but instead are related to lifestyle: your sleep and stress levels. Are you constantly feeling stressed? Are you getting a full eight hours of sleep each night? If you have high-stress levels and are not getting enough sleep, you might be leptin resistant.
Now that you’ve learned what some of the causes of leptin resistance are, you can actively start to work against them. Don’t worry, a few simple changes in your lifestyle can help reduce your leptin resistance and help you lose weight and keep the weight off: for good!